Day Two–NYC!

Highlight of the Day: Ann and I took in The Jewish Museum’s exhibition of artwork created for Russian Jewish theater productions in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition captures a period in the early years of the Soviet Union when visual artists, including Marc Chagall, Natan Altman, and Robert Falk, joined forces with avant–garde playwrights, actors, and theatrical producers to create a theater experience for the masses. The exhibit includes paintings, costume and set designs, posters, photographs, and film clips.

In 1920, Marc Chagall was creative director for the company. The exhibit shows his his sketches for stage sets, costumes and make-up; these are amazing enough. More amazing, however, is a whole room devoted to a set of murals Chagall created to be hung in the Moscow State Yiddish Theater. Incredibly, these murals had been rolled up in storage since 1950 in a gallery in Moscow. Chagall himself was not even sure they had survived until, in 1973, he returned to the Soviet Union for the first time since 1922 and signed the murals at the museum. In 1989 they were restored, and The Jewish Museum has them all on display. On one wall, four murals depict Dance, Drama, Literature, Music, The Banquet, and Love on the Stage. Along the top, a long mural captures Chagall’s version of a wedding banquet feast. A fifth mural covers the entire opposite wall–this mural is a carnival-like explosion of color, humor, and composition. I could not get enough of sitting in this room and soaking it all in. What a rare privilege it was to be able to see such masterpieces up close.

Another Highlight: Drinks with the boyz (Casey and Ben) after our Thursday night show. Silly fun and laughter as usual. Ann and I are older, but often less mature, than the boyz. We presented them each with their $20 cash prize for tying as winners of our Satellite Oscar pool, and they were thrilled.Low Point of the Day: The Roundabout Theatre’s production of Hedda Gabler. The only good point was that it had a magnet we could add to our collections.